Skip to main content
Main

Italian Spaghetti

A simple spaghetti dish cooked with tomatoes, onion, bacon grease or butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,719 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Italian Spaghetti

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the spaghetti

  1. Place the spaghetti in boiling water and boil until it swells and is half tender.

  2. Drain the spaghetti in a colander, allowing cold water to run through it.

Make the sauce

  1. Return the spaghetti to the kettle with cold water, tomatoes, onion, bacon grease or butter, salt, Tabasco sauce or cayenne pepper, and white pepper.

  2. Boil slowly until the mixture thickens and the onion is tender, stirring frequently to prevent sticking.

  3. For better flavor, let the spaghetti simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. If using cheese, stir it in as you remove the spaghetti from the kettle to the serving dish.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Tomato + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Spaghetti
Forms the bulk of the dish and absorbs the sauce as it simmers.
Sieved tomatoes
Provide the main liquid, body and acidity of the sauce.
Onion
Softens as it cooks, adding mild sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Bacon grease or butter
Adds fat that carries flavor and gives the sauce a rich mouthfeel.
Grated cheese
Melts into the hot spaghetti, adding savory flavor and richness.

The step that matters

Stirring while the sauce thickens. Tomato and onion mixtures are thick and sugary, so they settle and scorch on the base of the kettle. Frequent stirring keeps heat even and prevents sticking and burnt flavor.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, onion, butter, sauce, cheese, mushroom):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, onion, butter, sauce, cheese, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes